food. passion. life.

Motivation for life changing habits is hard to find. Either we sit around beating ourselves up for not having the life we want, or we think the life we want is unattainable so why try. Either way, we end up sitting still.

Today, I had a rare day. A day where I woke up refreshed and ready to change. It’s hard to say what caused this blip in my slothful cycle, but I was happy to have it. It could be that I finally slept well. It could be that I finally bought a new couch after suffering through a terrible futon for years. (Thus “going and doing” produced a positive result). Or, it could be that having moved stuff around my apartment to fit the new couch, I may have accidentally stumbled upon some Feng Shui that was better for my psyche. Who’s to say?

All I know is that I woke up ready to pray, meditate, work out, and eat a healthy breakfast. All things that do not come naturally to me. As I began my day, I wondered why can’t I wake up with this motivation everyday. And saying things like, “It won’t last,” and, “I have to figure out how this happened.” I was already sabotaging any chance of staying in the moment ready for change. But, as I stated above there could be multiple reasons that can’t be reproduced for why I woke up today — Ready Player One! (That reference is for my fellow nerds out there who can’t wait for the movie to come out.)

Then I realized something. Motivation is a byproduct of decisions, not the cause of results. If we wait until we have a motivation to do things, we would never do them. Often what motivates us is the feeling of accomplishment after the doing. For example, I know I need to work out and eat healthier, but I’m not motivated to do that after sleeping in and eating Portillo’s. When I am motivated to work out, is when I decide to wake up and work out instead of sleeping in. The feeling I get from working out in the morning then motivates me to have some healthy meals. Then how I feel from eating healthy makes me feel motivated to meditate and go to bed early enough to get up and work out the next morning.

Motivation comes from the high we get from achieving our goals, not the other way around. Sure you can wait for a random day like I had today, or you can save yourself weeks and months of disappointment, by just doing what you want to do. Change is hard, it takes a lot of work. But if you want motivation to change, then start changing, and you’ll find that motivation you need to keep changing.